Outward Bound - Off to See the Tiaga and Tundra

I will not be blogging for a while now as I am off to do ethnobotanical research in the Taiga and Tundra subarctic regions of the Faroe Islands, Iceland, Greenland and Newfoundland on my way back to Maine.

Meanwhile here is a quote from Walt Whitman

"This is what you shall do; Love the earth and sun and the animals, despise riches, give alms to every one that asks, stand up for the stupid and crazy, devote your income and labor to others, hate tyrants, argue not concerning God, have patience and indulgence toward the people, take off your hat to nothing known or unknown or to any man or number of men, go freely with powerful uneducated persons and with the young and with the mothers of families, read these leaves in the open air every season of every year of your life, re-examine all you have been told at school or church or in any book, dismiss whatever insults your own soul, and your very flesh shall be a great poem and have the richest fluency not only in its words but in the silent lines of its lips and face and between the lashes of your eyes and in every motion and joint of your body."

The Generous Man by Tor Nørretranders

While I was in the Klimaforum in Copenhagen this winter I heard the Danish Mathematician Tor Nørretranders give a speech about sociology and evolution.

I have just finished reading his new book 'The Generous Man' wherein he debunks the popularly accepted idea of a selfish homo economicus. He draws upon the sciences to introduce the idea that instead we are homo reciprocans and are naturally inclined to cooperate. I am inspired to go on reading about links between sociology, biology and philosophy.

My follow up books are 'The Nature Of Design' by David Orr and Environmental Sociology by Scottish Sociologist Phillip W. Sutton.


Read more about Tor Nørretranders on Edge

Beyond Edge:Tor Nørretranders' Blog

BP and Haliburton Chose Profit Over People and Nature

I am feeling a bit angry and radical this morning.

Reading the latest from the BBC 'BP was told of oil safety fault 'weeks before blast' I have been saddened but not at all shocked to find that profit was valued over people and nature in the lead up to the Gulf of Mexico oil disaster. Haliburton and BP have worked together to make a load of money and get out of there quick with the already impoverished and disaster ridden people, flora and fauna of the Gulf of Mexico left to pay the real costs.

Oil as a mechanism for human suffering and ecological collapse is not new. The people of many nations such as Iraq, Iran, Kuwait, Afghanistan have been paying with their lives and natural resources for generations to feed the hungry industrialized nations oil needs. Poor communities around the world have been paying the price for industrialization and the wealth of the 'developed' nations. With the 1989 Exxon spill and this BP spill some of the high costs of industrialization are being felt at home.

Here is a poem for the lost communities of sea life that have suffered, perished and will continue to do so in the Gulf of Mexico and the oceans of the world as long as we allow companies like BP and Haliburton to choose profit over people and nature.

The World Below the Brine by Walt Whitman

The world below the brine, Forests at the bottom of the sea, the branches and leaves,
Sea-lettuce, vast lichens, strange flowers and seeds, the thick tangle, openings, and pink turf,
Different colors, pale gray and green, purple, white, and gold, the play of light through the water,
Dumb swimmers there among the rocks, coral, gluten, grass, rushes, and the aliment of the swimmers,
Sluggish existences grazing there suspended, or slowly crawling close to the bottom,
The sperm-whale at the surface blowing air and spray, or disporting with his flukes,
The leaden-eyed shark, the walrus, the turtle, the hairy sea-leopard, and the sting-ray,
Passions there, wars, pursuits, tribes, sight in those ocean-depths, breathing that thick-breathing air, as so many do,
The change thence to the sight here, and to the subtle air breathed by beings like us who walk this sphere,
The change onward from ours to that of beings who walk other spheres.

Agroforestry Projects in Temperate Regions

I have discovered the Association for Temperate Agroforestry (AFTA) this morning and am excited to see something going on in this field. There seems to be a dearth of information and knowledge about the links between forestry and agriculture. This is especially unfortunate as according to the FAO at least 90% of all deforestation is for agricultural expansion. Both small holders and large scale industrial agricultural producers are cutting and burning down the forests to grow more food and fuel.

I am particularly interested in the situation in the global north, and intend to spend the summer exploring relationships between people and nature, both forests and shrub/tundra lands of the Arctic. I am finding that even less information and dialogue is going on concerning this area of research and I am very excited to start digging into it.

I have also found that the Indigeneous People's Issues and Resources website has some good information and discussions about the deforestation and farming issues from the people's perspective.

With this link I was able to get a .pdf version of the Canadian Boreal Inititive, Boreal Songbird Initiative and David Suzuki Foundation publication Conservation Value of the North American Boreal Forest from an Ethnobotanical Perspective.

Gary Snyder's poem came to mind while writing this post:

Smokey the Bear Sutra

Once in the Jurassic about 150 million years ago,
the Great Sun Buddha in this corner of the Infinite
Void gave a Discourse to all the assembled elements
and energies: to the standing beings, the walking beings,
the flying beings, and the sitting beings -- even grasses,
to the number of thirteen billion, each one born from a
seed, assembled there: a Discourse concerning
Enlightenment on the planet Earth.

"In some future time, there will be a continent called America. It will have great centers of power called such as Pyramid Lake, Walden Pond, Mt. Rainier, Big Sur, Everglades, and so forth; and powerful nerves and channels such as Columbia River, Mississippi River, and Grand Canyon
The human race in that era will get into troubles all over its head, and practically wreck everything in spite of its own strong intelligent Buddha-nature."

"The twisting strata of the great mountains and the pulsings of volcanoes are my love burning deep in the earth. My obstinate compassion is schist and basalt and granite, to be mountains, to bring down the rain. In that future American Era I shall enter a new form; to cure the world of loveless knowledge that seeks with blind hunger: and mindless rage eating food that will not fill it."

And he showed himself in his true form of

SMOKEY THE BEAR

• A handsome smokey-colored brown bear standing on his hind legs, showing that he is aroused and watchful.
• Bearing in his right paw the Shovel that digs to the truth beneath appearances; cuts the roots of useless attachments, and flings damp sand on the fires of greed and war;
• His left paw in the Mudra of Comradely Display -- indicating that all creatures have the full right to live to their limits and that deer, rabbits, chipmunks, snakes, dandelions, and lizards all grow in the realm of the Dharma;
• Wearing the blue work overalls symbolic of slaves and laborers, the countless men oppressed by a civilization that claims to save but often destroys;
• Wearing the broad-brimmed hat of the West, symbolic of the forces that guard the Wilderness, which is the Natural State of the Dharma and the True Path of man on earth: all true paths lead through mountains --
• With a halo of smoke and flame behind, the forest fires of the kali-yuga, fires caused by the stupidity of those who think things can be gained and lost whereas in truth all is contained vast and free in the Blue Sky and Green Earth of One Mind;
• Round-bellied to show his kind nature and that the great earth has food enough for everyone who loves her and trusts her;
• Trampling underfoot wasteful freeways and needless suburbs; smashing the worms of capitalism and totalitarianism;
• Indicating the Task: his followers, becoming free of cars, houses, canned foods, universities, and shoes; master the Three Mysteries of their own Body, Speech, and Mind; and fearlessly chop down the rotten trees and prune out the sick limbs of this country America and then burn the leftover trash.

Wrathful but Calm. Austere but Comic. Smokey the Bear will Illuminate those who would help him; but for those who would hinder or slander him,

HE WILL PUT THEM OUT.

Thus his great Mantra:

Namah samanta vajranam chanda maharoshana
Sphataya hum traka ham nam

"I DEDICATE MYSELF TO THE UNIVERSAL DIAMOND BE THIS RAGING FURY DESTROYED"

And he will protect those who love woods and rivers,
Gods and animals, hobos and madmen, prisoners and sick
people, musicians, playful women, and hopeful children:

And if anyone is threatened by advertising, air pollution, television, or the police, they should chant SMOKEY THE BEAR'S WAR SPELL:

DROWN THEIR BUTTS
CRUSH THEIR BUTTS
DROWN THEIR BUTTS
CRUSH THEIR BUTTS

And SMOKEY THE BEAR will surely appear to put the enemy out with his vajra-shovel.

• Now those who recite this Sutra and then try to put it in practice will accumulate merit as countless as the sands of Arizona and Nevada.
• Will help save the planet Earth from total oil slick.
• Will enter the age of harmony of man and nature.
• Will win the tender love and caresses of men, women, and beasts.
• Will always have ripe blackberries to eat and a sunny spot under a pine tree to sit at.
• AND IN THE END WILL WIN HIGHEST PERFECT ENLIGHTENMENT.
  
  
  thus have we heard.
  
  (may be reproduced free forever)

Wild Collection in Organic Agiculture

I am getting more and more inspired to look into the potentials and pitfalls in organic certified wild collection. Most of us are not aware that wild collection comprises such a large portion of the area of organic agriculture around the world. According to the latest statistics from IFOAM and FiBL wild collection and beekeeping makes up 31 of the 35 million hectares under organic certification. Most of this land is in developing countries.

I am now watching a presentation called 'The Sustainable Management of Biodiversity' from the IMO  FairWild and GTZ about wild collection in the Southern Caucasus and in central Asia. Large percentages of the wild collected products of Uzbekistan are being exported and these groups are working to help preserve biodiversity in these areas with the new FairWild standard. This is a global phenomenon and needs to be looked at seriously. If the 'Tragedy of the Commons' can be avoided the potential for wild collection to contribute to the local diet and the possibility for income generation through organic certification of sustainable harvests is very hopeful.


Check out Wild Collection International

Ethnobotany in Greenland and Iceland

I am planning a trip across the North Atlantic this summer to do an ethnobotanical survey of small scale permaculture and organic farms who are preserving and utilizing native biodiversity in small island communities.

I have been in touch with a number of people around the area who continue to tell me that traveling by boat cannot be done in that area. They also say that there are no farms or forests.

Well, I see this as a research and investigative challenge.


LISTEN TO THE MUSTN'TS
by Shel Silverstein

Listen to the MUSTN'TS, child,
Listen to the DON'TS
Listen to the SHOULDN'TS
The IMPOSSIBLES, the WON'TS
Listen to the NEVER HAVES
Then listen close to me --
Anything can happen, child
ANYTHING can be.

What Are People For?

For the last few weeks I have been reading and re-reading a 2000 collection of essays by Wendell Berry titled: What are People For?;  I read it to visitors who come for the coffee and wild food; I read it between classes and chapters of Fukuoka and Rushdie; I cannot stop reading.

Wendell Berry is an extremely well spoken and pissed off farmer living in rural Kentucky and writing about the state of things from the small scale farmer's perspective.  In this book he addresses everything from the industrialization of sex to the agricultural policies in the US which have driven migration of rural people to urban areas. He shows a number of fantastic examples of what a good life looks like and he questions some of our deep seated assumptions about life in the 21st century.

Reading this work I find myself drawn to the fields and the woods. I spend more time planting and harvesting than I do reading or preparing for classes.

Several of Wendell Berry's essays are available to read online from North Glen. The good people at Powell's Books In Portland Oregon have written a synopsis of the work and have copies available.The reviews are a fun read here too. Interscience has posted a brief response to the title essay What Are People For?.  Brtom has some links and an interesting response to Wendell Berry's controversial article 'Why I am not going to by a Computer'. Berry's follow up to this essay is Sales Resistance.

Shirley Nicklin's award winning photo Maturity and a poem by Wendell Berry.